


Zoom In

by Wonderlandleighleigh



Series: Photos old and new [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Supernatural
Genre: F/M, crossovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 08:59:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8743618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wonderlandleighleigh/pseuds/Wonderlandleighleigh
Summary: The love of Tim Drake's life is a little...off-kilter. Mostly, he likes it that way.





	

It occurs to Tim Drake relatively early on that the woman he’s in love with is…

A little odd. 

1.

She has strange knowledge gaps. 

“Who’s Mary Poppins?” Ramona Winchester asks, when he references spoonfuls of sugar and she doesn’t get it. 

Tim frowns deeply. “You- I mean you’ve never seen...I mean it’s...it’s a classic movie.” 

She just shrugs. “If it wasn’t Indiana Jones or Star Wars, we didn’t watch it, for the most part.” 

He blinks. He’s not sure if this makes her his ideal woman, or if he’s just sad that she missed out on so many great Disney cartoons. 

Either way, he buys them all. For educational purposes. 

2\. 

“Ramona?” 

“Mhm?” 

She’s in the kitchen, which is where she is very often. There’s a pot of something that smells obscenely good on the stove when Tim walks in the door, and his feet crunch on something…

Sandy. 

“Uh…” 

“Catseye shells,” she tells him. “Goofer dust.” 

He frowns. “Uh…” 

“Can you put down a fresh line where you stepped inside?” she asks. “The bag is by the TV.” 

3\. 

She wakes up from bad dreams just as often as he does. She shakes and her eyes dart around the room of their apartment, trying to figure out where she is.

“Ramona?” 

She looks at him, and recognition flashes across her face. She relaxes against him, curling up, hiding against him. 

Tim doesn’t ask about the dreams. Just like she doesn’t ask about his. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to know. 

4\. 

She has no family. 

Well, she has a random, odd man who claims to be an angel of the lord that sometimes comes to visit and sleep on their couch, but her father and uncle died relatively recently, and they were her only blood relatives. 

Everyone else is dead, as far as Tim knows. 

No mother. No grandparents. Nothing.

And Tim can relate, but he’s made a new one and Ramona…

Well. 

There’s still that odd angel man, Tim supposes. 

5\. 

They talked once about the drawer filled with condiment packets. Ketchup. Honey. Syrups and jams and salt and pepper. 

Ramona described it as a “poor person habit," and there’s one night that he actually pushes the subject. 

“I was left alone a lot,” she tells him. “When I was little, Daddy used to go on hunts and leave me in the motel room, and I had some food, and some money for food, but sometimes they’d be gone longer than they thought they would, so...y’know. Mayonnaise sandwiches. A little pepper.” 

He feels his stomach turn sour at the thought of that. A little girl, helpless and alone, running out of food, making do. 

When the drawer fills up, they donate it to the South Street Clinic, and start over. 

6\. 

They get married on a quiet beach in France. Just Bruce and Selina and Alfred and his brothers and sisters, and again, that angel (he really is apparently. Damn), and a woman named Jody who’s kind, but clearly takes no shit.

After the reception winds down, he finds Ramona sitting in the sand, still in her dress, looking out at the ocean in the dark. The moon hangs high, and Tim settles next to her, sliding an arm around her, and letting her rest her head on his shoulder. 

“Love you,” she says softly. 

He tightens his arm around her. “I love you too.” 

7\. 

They take a roadtrip for their honeymoon. 

Two weeks, her father’s old ‘67 Impala, and nowhere special to be. 

Lebanon Kansas is an odd place to wind up. Small and quiet, but Tim doesn’t mind.

It’s the bunker that throws him. 

It’s enormous, and it’s filled with books and weapons and old technology that he can’t wait to play with. 

“What is this place?” 

“The Men of Letters bunker,” she tells him. “Daddy and Uncle Sammy were hunters, but there was also this group of people who studied ghosts and monsters and stuff...I mean they don’t exist anymore, but this was their base, and this was where we lived for a long time.” 

Tim nods, watching her move around the room. “So...not that I don’t like seeing where you lived, because I really do. I can’t wait to see your room, and also read every book in this place, but...uh...what are we doing here?” 

She looks around, as if she’s realizing where they are for the first time. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, shrugging helplessly. “I don’t...I don’t know. I just...I don’t know.” 

He wraps his arms around her tightly and she buries her face against his chest and they stand in the quiet bunker like that for a while. 

They stay a couple of days, and he doesn’t get to read every book in the place, but he gets to read a few. 

8\. 

She’s a little paranoid. 

Something falls off a shelf late at night, and she’s rummaging hurriedly for the gun she keeps in her bedside table, looking for all the world like someone (or something) is going to kick down their door and murder them. 

He rushes around to her side of the bed and kneels in front of her, gently taking her wrists. 

Ramona stops and looks him in the eyes, and he looks back, steady and unwavering, and she calms down and slumps against him. 

9\. 

She settles three different journals in front of him, and Tim frowns. 

“What are these?”

“My grandfather’s, my father’s, and my uncle’s journals,” she tells him. She sits across from him. “I thought you might like to read them. It’ll help you get a better idea of who they were. What they did.” 

Tim touches the one that’s Dean Winchester’s. This man that meant so much to his wife. 

His wife who looks hopeful. She wants him to understand the kind of life she’s lead. The kind of life her family had.

So he does as she asks. After she goes to bed, he sits at the kitchen table, and reads. 

And he’s not impressed one bit by these men. These men who were careless and reckless, and while they did some good, they put the love of his life in danger so many times it makes Tim’s stomach flip. 

Screw these guys and their mission. Their “job.” 

“That’s the job,” Dean Winchester wrote on one of his last pages. 

And Tim thinks that no. No, the job Dean Winchester should have been doing was making sure his daughter didn’t spend one single second alone in a cold motel room with nothing to eat.

And the man didn’t do that job, and Tim…

Tim is kind of furious. 

10\. 

They fight about it. 

“They did the best they could!” Ramona cries, completely bewildered.

“That’s insane, Ramona!” Tim pleads, waving John Winchester’s journal in the air. “They were insane! And they neglected you, and they used you in their crazy obsession!” 

“That’s not fair!” she yells. “You weren’t there! You don’t know-!” 

“I love you,” Tim tells her. “I would do anything for you! These men-” 

“Loved me the best that they could,” she snaps at him. “It wasn’t perfect. Sometimes, it sucked, but they tried!” 

“This was not trying, Ramona!” 

She scoffs at him. “ If we’re talking about shitty parents, do you really want to have that discussion? Or are we forgetting that your parents used to leave you alone in a giant house with nobody to talk to, and then died on you?” 

He glowers at her. “That’s not-” 

“Or!” she laughs a little brokenly. “Or, we can talk about your adopted father, the psychotic billionaire playboy who collects children and trains them to beat up dangerous criminals, regularly getting them killed or just plain cutting them loose when they don’t do exactly what he says! Do you want to talk about that?” 

He stays at the manor for a few days. 

10.

That weird angel guy shows up, and he touches Tim in the middle of his forehead, and suddenly Tim is dizzy and nauseous, and not in Gotham anymore. 

Weirdly enough, he’s in a diner in the middle of nowhere, and he’s not sure what year it is, but it sure as hell isn’t present day. 

Across from him in the booth is that angel. 

“Uhm…” 

“We are in Ohio.” 

“Okay,” Tim nods slowly. “We’re in Ohio. What are we doing in Ohio?” 

“Watching.” 

“Watching-” 

He freezes when the door to the diner opens, and a tiny blond girl leads a burly, handsome man by his fingers inside. 

She hops up and down, scattering snow from her little purple boots, obviously trying to get warm from the cold. 

Tim stares. “That’s-” 

“Sshh,” Castiel reprimands him. “And yes.” 

“Daddy is it hot chocolate time?” the little girl asks, and Tim knows it’s Ramona. He’s seen the few photos that exist of her from when she was small. 

“You bet your butt, Princess,” the man says playfully, lets her drag him further in.

Tim can only watch, as Dean Winchester very carefully helps Ramona out of her scarf and jacket, and then gets her settled in the booth. 

“Doin okay?” he asks gently, sliding in across from her. “You hurtin any today?” 

Ramona shakes her head, and Tim knows now how old she is. He remembers the story of the faded scar on her belly. 

“This isn’t long after the stray bullet,” he says quietly. 

“No, it is not,” Castiel confirms. “About a year. She’s five.” 

“Did you know them now?” 

“I didn’t,” Castiel admits. “But when I was trying to understand Dean Winchester, I often came back to moments such as these. They’re very revealing. I thought you might want to see one as well.” 

Tim grins sadly, and turns his attention back to Dean and Ramona. The way he makes sure she has plenty of napkins, and the way he helps her color in the placemat with the cheap crayons the restaurant provides. 

When the waitress walks up, they both smile at her; the same smile, just about. Dean’s a little smarmy, while Ramona’s is bright, and Tim listens as they talk the waitress into extra marshmallows in their hot chocolates, and Dean orders their food. A bacon cheeseburger for him, and chicken fingers with honey mustard for her.

They look so normal and happy. Just a father and his daughter enjoying a nice dinner together. 

“So after dinner, we’re gonna drive to Iowa and meet Gramps,” Dean says as he blows on Ramona’s hot chocolate before sliding it over to her carefully. “Don’t drink too fast. Don’t burn your tongue.” 

She nods dutifully and blows on it too before taking a tiny sip. 

“I know that you are upset about the way the Winchesters treated Ramona,” Castiel says..” But I wanted to show you that even though things were hard, Dean still loved his daughter very much. And he tried.” 

“Why didn’t he quit hunting?” Tim asks. 

“He actually attempted to at least once,” Castiel tells him grimly. “But he was always pulled back in. It is very, very hard to get out.” 

“Then how did Ramona?” 

Castiel glances back at the Winchesters. “She was never a hunter. She helped, but she’s never been on a hunt by herself. She turned eighteen and left for cooking school. Dean and Sam were sad to see her go, but so relieved and proud. They never wanted that life for her.” 

Tim turns his attention back to Dean and Ramona, watching as Dean helps the little girl mix honey mustard with ketchup and pepper. 

He can’t help grinning.

11\. 

Before he goes home, he stops by William Sonoma and picks up some of the things Ramona loves best, but holds off on because they’re expensive. 

A jar of Saffron. A bottle of smoked olive oil, and herbs de province and he finds a set of measuring cups that look like science beakers, and buys those too. 

When Tim steps inside the apartment, the smell of his favorite macaroni and cheese recipe hits him right in the face, and he finds her in their kitchen, leaning against the counters, watching the stove intently. 

“Hi,” he says softly. 

She turns to him, and smiles sadly, waving awkwardly. 

He hesitates for a moment before sidling up next to her, leaning too, and takes her hand. Ramona grips his hand tightly. 

“Is that my favorite in the oven?” he asks softly.

She nods. “I was...I was hoping you’d come home tonight...I made the gumbo you like last night hoping you’d come home...but...but I wanted to say I’m sorry. Those things I said were so unfair.”

“Ramona…” 

“I know you love me,” she tells him, turning to him. “You said the things you said because you love me. And I...I got defensive and it wasn’t right.” 

Tim strokes her cheek. “I wasn’t much better. I said really crappy things about people you love. That wasn’t fair either.” 

Ramona leans into his hand, closing her eyes, and he kisses her forehead. 

“I made a run to William Sonoma for you.” 

She smiles a little, not able to help it. “You didn’t have to…” 

“I wanted to, because I love you,” he tells her. “Just like you wanted to make me my favorites, because you love me.” 

They don’t do a lot of talking after that, and the food is a little crispier than usual because they’re not paying attention. 

12\. 

He goes with Ramona to Leslie when she starts feeling ill, and they’re both worried by how tired she is; how nauseous. 

Leslie walks back into her little office at the South Street Clinic and looks them over. “The test results are back.” 

Ramona looks nervous, gripping his hand tightly. “O-okay.” 

“You’re not sick,” she reassures them both. “But...you are pregnant.” 

Tim blinks rapidly, looking from Leslie to Ramona. “I...we….what?” 

“Congratulations,” Leslie smiles. “You’re having a baby.” 

Ramona looks surprised, but happy. “But- I - we were gonna get a cat first!” she laughs incredulously. She turns to Tim. “What about the cat? Wasn’t the cat gonna be like a trial run for a baby?” 

Tim just smiles and lifts her hand, kissing it. 

13\. 

Their daughter is tiny, but perfect, and when they take her home, Tim stays up all night with her, sitting by the window while she finally sleeps in her crib. When the sun comes up, he feels Ramona’s gentle hands on his shoulders, and looks up, finding her there, looking happy, and a little more rested. 

“Hi,” he says softly. “Sleep okay?” 

“Mhm,” she nods. “Did you sleep at all?” 

“I’m used to staying up for days at a time,” he reminds her, smiling. “When we met, I lived on coffee.” 

“Oh, I know,” she says. “How’s our girl?” 

“She’s good,” Tim says. “Finally asleep.” 

Ramona kisses the top of his head. “You should be too, Hero.” 

“Another couple minutes,” he says, even though his eyes droop. “Just...another...another couple…” 

“Love you, Tim,” she says softly, and it’s the last thing he hears before he falls asleep.


End file.
